


Deck the Halls

by Achilles_Angst



Category: Lockwood & Co. - Jonathan Stroud
Genre: Christmas, F/M, Fluff, Humour, Lockwood and Co secret Santa, Vibing, and also locklyle content hehe, just a littol bit, just the gang being the gang
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:48:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28325595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Achilles_Angst/pseuds/Achilles_Angst
Summary: Lockwood and Co go Christmas tree shopping.
Relationships: Lucy Carlyle & George Cubbins & Quill Kipps & Anthony Lockwood & Holly Munro, Lucy Carlyle/Anthony Lockwood
Comments: 2
Kudos: 38





	Deck the Halls

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the wonderful Niffler on the discord server for the secret Santa event!

At 35 Portland Row, we were all manically busy. Holly was presiding over me as I laboriously labelled bulky, mysterious objects. George was reading through a long and heavily scribbled on list, muttering to himself as he went and checking the cupboards for supplies. Kipps and Lockwood were fencing, panting with exertion. 

You would be forgiven for assuming that we were preparing for a major case, a nasty group of Type Two’s perhaps. In fact, I was labelling presents, George was making a serious Christmas dinner shopping list, and Lockwood and Kipps had been helping to wrap presents until they’d discovered Holly’s growing pile of wrapping paper tubes.

I eyed the present in front of me. “Are you sure giving whiskey to a DEPRAC agent is legal?”

Lockwood paused just long enough to wave an easy hand at me. “It’ll be fine. Barnes tells me he needs a stiff drink every time he sees me.” 

Quill, evidently sensing opportunity, bopped him soundly on the head from behind and shot around the kitchen table at an impressive speed, lurking behind my chair. 

Lockwood let out a whoop of rage and lunged, but Holly descended on him, flapping her hands at us. “Stop! I pause for a second and carnage begins! Go away and start wrapping again.” 

“I’m helping.” I pointed out, virtuously.

Lockwood grinned, propping his tube over his shoulder as a rakish pirate might with a cutlas. “You inspire chaos, Lucy. Like a muse.”

Despite myself, I grinned back. Lockwood and I weren’t exactly dating as far as the term technically went-we had yet to go on a single date-but we were newly together, and I still revelled in it. I was beginning to think I always would. 

Before I could respond, however, Holly smacked her hands down on the table with enough force that the presents all jerked. “Focus!”

Lockwood and Quill sidled back to the library, giving Holly a wide berth. She was known to swat at passers by when under stress. 

George took that moment to emerge from where he had been rootling at the back of one of the cupboards, besmudged with flour and what looked suspiciously like black treacle. “Hol, I’d say we need about a ton of sultanas and raisins for the cake. I don’t think we’ve got any at all.”

Holly, frazzled by trying to herd us into constructive activities and by exposure to the ominous view of the rear of George’s tracksuit bottoms as he had dug around in the cupboard, merely handed him a fresh pen to continue writing his list with. 

I bent dutifully back to my task, writing out labels to stick onto various gifts. It had occurred to me that if I was writing labels for presents that Lockwood and Kipps were merrily wrapping in the other room, we were going to struggle later to match package to label, but the thought of bringing our combined idiocy up with Holly was frankly painful. They were all quite differently shaped as well, I thought hopefully. We would probably be able to tell them apart.

Before I could ponder this further, however, Lockwood bounced in. “We’ve finished wrapping, Hol! Tree time!” 

Holly, in a bid to force us to get everything done, had suggested in a tone that brooked no argument that we should finish sorting presents and cards and tidying the house before we even thought about a tree. Cards and tidying had been accomplished yesterday, and now it seemed the only things we had to do before Christmas was wrap presents for each other in secret and make George continual top-ups of tea while he baked the Christmas cake. 

Holly, sensing that further resistance was probably futile, half heartedly pointed out that George still hadn’t done the shopping. George deflected her easily, saying he could do it this afternoon while everyone else was decorating. I suspected that this was largely to make sure that none of us offered some well meant help, as the last time we had all gone to the supermarket together we’d been escorted out again for causing a scene in the cereal aisle.

Lockwood grinned. “Surrender is inevitable, Holly. It’s tree time.” 

Holly gave a reluctant grin as he wandered off. “He’s very keen this year.” 

I hummed in agreement. In previous years, Lockwood had shown virtually no interest in Christmas at all, conceding only to George and I stringing up some fairy lights in the library. Holly had watched our rather pitiful efforts last year with visible horror, and had tentatively suggested this year that we actually get a tree and celebrate. Somewhat to my suprise, after initial disinterest, Lockwood had thrown himself into the plan with near palpable glee. I found myself wondering how many Christmasses he’d celebrated properly, and realised abruptly that this must be his first Christmas with something approaching a family group again since his parents had died. I wondered if he and Jessica had done anything together, and resolved to ask him about it later.

George, ever the most competent among us, had asked his favorite archive assistants where they got their trees from and had compiled a list of possible shops, out of which he had picked one cheerfully titled “Pines and Needles.” He denied picking it solely for the pun, but I had my doubts. They set up temporary shops yearly, and one had been set up in a square within easy walking distance of Portland Row. It had been unanimously agreed that trying to wrestle a seven foot tall tree onto the tube would probably get us lynched by irate commuters, and as none of us owned a car we’d been relegated to walking. 

It was late morning by the time we set off, the day cold and with an unpleasant hint of freezing drizzle in the air. We fell into our agent stride by habit, clearing the pavements despite the lack of gear. Or maybe we were being recognised. There had been a lot of pictures in the paper after Fittes had gone down, and Lockwood had become something of a minor celebrity. 

The square was indeed only a couple of streets away. Normally acting as a sedate garden for the residents of the square, it had been transformed into a small Christmas wonderland, complete with a rather damp looking Santa’s grotto and a stall selling hot chestnuts which George immediately gravitated towards. An area had been fenced off for the trees, which were propped against each other in a manner that made them look rather like a group of drunken sailors. A few families were drifting around, children shrieking with glee. 

Lockwood strode towards the trees with the air of a man on a serious mission. His aura of steely determination was dented somewhat when a small child sprinted directly into his knees and had to be disentangled from his coat, but he persisted. We wandered, looking at the height and shape of each tree critically. I was enjoying the scent of pine, reminded of the excitement of seeing the get tree put up in the village green where I had grown up, locals crowding around to cheer and shout either encouragement or criticism at the men tasked with erecting it.

I was drawn from my memory by Lockwood and Holly having an argument over a tree, Lockwood convinced that it would fit in the library and Holly equally sure that it wouldn’t. George, freshly armed with a cone of hot chestnuts, said cheerfully that it would probably fit and if it didn’t Kipps could probably chop it down to size. Kipps glowered at him and asked whether he thought he looked like a lumberjack, and George was about to gleefully respond when I said that I liked the tree too. 

Lockwood beamed at me over George’s head. “Hah. Luce has taste too.” 

Holly sighed. “Since you’ve chosen such a lovely big tree, Lockwood, you can carry it home.” Lockwood shrugged. “Someone else’ll have to take one end, I can’t carry the whole thing.” 

George, Holly and I all turned to Kipps as one. He stared back at us for a moment, then gave a heartfelt groan. “Fine, fine. I’d better get payed for this in mince pies.”

Carrying the tree did not look like a pleasant venture. Lockwood and Kipps had settled into a kind of echo chamber of complaining about being stabbed by the needles, while George walked ahead, calling out helpful directions which only made the grumbling increase. 

Holly fell into step beside me. 

“This brings back memories. Well, not of the tree but of the Christmas bickering.” 

I glanced at her. “Oh?” 

“Mm. My parents don’t actually celebrate Christmas, but they wanted me and my siblings to grow up with English holidays, so we used to do presents and stockings and everything. We even had a plastic tree we used yearly to put the gifts under.” 

“We didn’t really do that much, at home. Mam was too busy for stockings but we went to the Carol service and gave each other little presents. Made cards and things.” 

Holly smiled. “Our christmasses were probably pretty much opposites of each other. My parents were obsessed with getting all the details right, like it would make us more English. Eid was more fun.” 

I snorted. “Yup, the last thing Mam cared about was details at Christmas. The only thing she liked about it was the acceptable day drinking.” 

Holly’s eyes were warm. “It’s nice to be spending it my own way, this year.” 

I smiled back at her. “It is.”

When we got back to the house and wrestled the tree up the front steps, it was too tall for the library. Holly stared at the top of it, bent sadly against the ceiling, then turned to Lockwood. “I said-“

Lockwood sighed. “You said it was too tall and it’s too tall.” 

I eyed it. “I think if we cut the top down a bit, it won’t matter since there’ll be an angel or something on top.” 

Lockwood brightened. “Good plan, Lucy. Do you think the kitchen scissors will go through it?” 

The kitchen scissors did, albeit with a lot of cursing and attempted sawing. We screwed it into the stand the people at the grotto had helpfully sold us and admired it. It looked slightly mangled, but Lockwood said firmly that it added to its charm. 

Kipps gazed at it contemplatively. “Do we actually have any decorations?” 

We considered this. “There’s definitely a box of fairy lights in the garage.” I ventured.

Lockwood looked thoughtful. “Provided Lucy hasn’t thrown them out, I think there are boxes of decorations under her bed, actually. That’s where my parents kept them.” 

“I haven’t touched them.” There were indeed some cardboard boxes under the foot of my bed, but I had never gone near them, just hoped like hell that there weren’t sources in there and that if there were any the bedframe would save me.

Lockwood grinned. “Perfect. George, Holly, Quill, you go and root out the lights. Lucy and I’ll go and dig out the decorations.”

We went, though Quill raised an eyebrow at me as he passed in a way that suggested that he thought me and Lockwood peeling off from the others was intentional. I rather hoped he was right.

We pattered up the stairs together in familiar silence, listening to the clatter from the others fade as we climbed. When we reached the landing, I gestured Lockwood up the steep stairs to my room. “Gentlemen first.” 

Lockwood smiled. “I don’t think that’s quite the normal phrase.” But he clambered on up before me. I watched him go, trying not to blush. Lockwood’s predilection for buying his suits a size too small had yet to wane.

In my room, Lockwood rummaged under my bed, occasionally tossing back items of clothing that I’d long since forgotten about. He slid the boxes out to me, and wriggled back out, dusting himself off as he stood.

“That should be us sorted, then,” he said. 

I toed one of the boxes. “Yup.” 

“We should probably take these down.” 

I met his gaze. “The fairy lights were quite well buried. It’ll probably take the others a while to find them.” 

A slow, brilliant smile stole across Lockwood’s face. 

“Lucy Carlyle, are you suggesting that we loiter up here for our own gain?”

I grinned. “Well  _ I  _ wasn’t planning on doing much loitering.” And I put my hands on either side of his face and pulled him down to kiss me. 

The tip of his nose was cold but his mouth was warm and soft and lovely, and his hands rose to hold my waist like they belonged there. There was still a thrill to this, a sparking rush of joy that I wasn’t sure whether to attribute to novelty or to Lockwood. I looked forward to figuring out which it was. 

Lockwood drew back just far enough that we could look at each other. 

“Happy-almost-Christmas, Lucy.” 

I laughed. “We’ve got a few days yet.” 

“Mmm. You know, I think Holly might be planning to string up some mistletoe between now and then.” 

I laced our fingers together. “I’m not sure we need the excuse, really.” 

Lockwood chuckled. “Oh, we definitely don’t. But I wouldn’t mind starting a tradition.”

“I think we could manage that.” 

I kissed him again, lightly, just because I could. “Happy-nearly-Christmas, Lockwood.”


End file.
